Russellville schools are prepared for disasters, Judith Carruth, with Crisis Preparedness at the Russellville School District said during the Russellville City Council meeting June 22.

"There has been a lot of thought about what might happen with our children," Carruth said.

The school's safety policy takes into account school shootings, chemical and bio-hazard spills from Interstate 40, local railroad tracks, bombs and natural disasters.

Carruth said Danny Taylor, former superintendent, saw the school landscape changing and took initiative to keep children safe.

"We have a need to say that these people (teachers and children) are safe at school and in their job," she said.

She pointed out a "tremendous amount" of chemicals go by Russellville daily. Russellville was also close to a nuclear plant, railroads and the Dardanelle Lock and Dam.

Recently, the school received a Safe Schools, Healthy Student Grant for about $3 million. The grant is to prevent school shootings and to pay for equipment, such as radios for communication within the school and with police.

Russellville Police Department officers have walked through the school to get acquainted with the layout in case of a crisis, Carruth said. Although blueprints are available, seeing the school first-hand helps officers, she said.

Every person brought technology, such as child demographics and critical information on palm pilots, she said.

Along with fire drills mandated by law, the school has been drilling for chemical skills.

Chemical spills are the hardest to drill for, Carruth said. The school developed orange boxes for the state-mandated drill. The boxes contain Visqueen cut to fit doorways and Duct tape used to seal the windowless area off.

The idea was to seal the bad air outside until police help arrived. Carruth said the drill needed tweaking to get fresh air to students and teachers for longer. But, overall, it was successful.

"We locked down the high school in 10 minutes," she said.

The advances in safety and prevention techniques will make a difference in case of an emergency, plus the school was looking at preventing shootings.

"School shootings can be prevented," she said, adding that shootings wouldn't occur if teachers recognize symptoms and society and families got involved.

Alderman Tyrone Williamson asked about safety concerns in the middle school. He said fights had erupted in the 5th and 6th grades, but Police Chief James Bacon said the police department didn't have the funds or manpower to patrol the school.

"If the high school can hire a new security guard, hire one for the middle school, using school money," Williamson said. "We pay taxes."

In other business

The council tabled paying the Russellville Regional Airport $49,000 to help the facility fund itself and balance its budget through the end of the year.

The city should wait on developing an ordinance further restricting sexual offenders, City Attorney Trey Smith said.

Currently, several states, including Arkansas, are being sued for restrictions, and Russellville would be better off waiting until litigations are resolved, he said.